Humans throughout history have looked to nature as the ultimate teacher; nature is the sacred text from which all wisdom flows. As druids, we know the more time you spend in nature, the more you align with its rhythms, and the more you discover its many teachings. One of the reasons I am so committed to permaculture design as part of my outer druid practice, is that permaculture design is rooted in that same natural wisdom. The permaculture design principles, which I’ll be discussing today in this post, are the core of permaculture: we use them, along with the three ethics, to help us make every decision, not only for design work, but also for daily living. If we are going to continue our journey into the inner and outer realms of permaculture, and how this concept ties to druidry and other earth-based spiritual practices, a discussion of the design principles is our logical next step!

I’ve also found it useful to group the principles under one banner of the elements and the druid animals (with my own addition of the bee of inspiration for spirit). The principles don’t all work in the same way, and this grouping helps us understand them in a new light. In terms of the actual principles, in some cases, I have kept the principles the same. But in other cases, I have adapted these principles to be shared and most applicable to those following nature-based, earth-centered paths. This meant that I may given them a more appropriate name that will better resonate with our values, and in other cases, I have created new principles that are rooted in the spiritual traditions in honoring the living earth.

I want to note that my lens is by no way present in mainstream permaculture, although certainly can be found on the fringes of the current movement and, I believe, is being woven more and more into permaculture as a practice. As people regenerate and heal the land, they are naturally drawn to it spiritually. As a druid, know that these principles go much deeper. I’ve also included the original design principle in parenthesis when necessary.

Spirit Principles: The Wisdom of the Bee

The principles of spirit, through the magic of the bee, ask us to observe what is around us, to rethink and resee those experiences, and to understand the connections to all things. Bees are master alchemists; they transform nectar into honey that can stay preserved for 1000 years. Bees embody the principle of transformation, teaching us that we, too, can work our magic upon our earth, especially if we work collectively.

Observe, Interact, and Intuit (Observe and Interact, Holmgren). This principle is simple—it asks you, before you do anything else, to spend time observing your surroundings, interacting with them in a non-judgmental way, and (and this is my addition) using your intuition to guide you. We can gain incredible insight from this simple activity, and using the information before us is a way into all else. All living beings use this same principle: observing, interacting, and working on instinct to survive and thrive. We do this in the AODA, where members are asked to spend at 15 minutes a week in nature in stillness and focus, for example.

Reflect and Revise (Apply self-regulation and value feedback, Holmgren). This principle has two parts, and we’ll briefly consider each. There is tremendous value in when we simply stop what we are doing and carefully think and meditate on our actions—this is the act of reflection. Reflection, through meditation, journaling, and quietude is a cornerstone of nature-based spiritual practices as well as permaculture. Revise, here, suggests that if we spend time periodically really thinking through and reflecting upon what we are doing, new insights may arise that we will be able to employ in our sacred action. Revise here also implies that not being too committed to any particular approach is good—revision is a process where we shape and hone earlier ideas into something better. Sometimes, it takes us working through a project or meaningful change partway before we see a better way we can do something.

Work on Multiple Levels (New principle). There are a few ways to think about this principle, derived from both systems theory and hermetic occult philosophy. On the side of systems theory, we need to have an awareness and engage in designs that allow us to consider and work on multiple levels: the micro/individual, and the macro/system. When we recognize that a single element is part of a larger system, that changes the way we think about that system and about that element. Working on multiple levels encourages us to think in these two perspectives at once, and consider the interplay between them. This same interplay also takes place between the inner and outer realms. The bee, as both an individual and as a superorganism, helps us better understand this principle: a solitary bee functions on her own, but does so as part of that larger hive (system of bees) working for collective good.

On the hermetic side, this practice, is perhaps best epitomized by the magical adage, “As above, so below, as within, so without.” The underling idea here is that what we do on the inner planes (that is, realms of experience beyond the physical), has a direct impact on the physical plane. Similarly, what occurs on the outer planes has an impact on our inner realms. This also applies to us as people—the inner work we do (reflection, meditation, journeying, ritual) impacts our outer living; and vice versa. It is a principle that is well worth including here, as this principle has been enacted by humans, upon the landscape, for millennia. Outer transformations lead to inner transformations, and vice versa. We heal the land, we heal ourselves.

Air Principles: The Wisdom of the Hawk

Elemental Wheel

The air principles focus on integrating our knowledge and wisdom to see more paths before us and using the power of air through our logic, intellect, and pattern recognition. These principles ask us to embody the energy of the hawk: first to fly high, take stock of what is before us, and offer us new was of experiencing and interacting as we begin the path towards positive change.

The Problem is the Solution (Mollison). This is one of my favorite of the principles, and for good reason. We spend so much of our lives hearing about the problems that plague us and feeling unable to address any of them. This principle turns that powerlessness on its head and suggests that the solution to any problem lies within the nature of the problem itself. For example, lawns are contributing substantially to climate change and the loss of ecological diversity; and the solution is there before us: change the nature of the lawn. It is often than when we look at problems not as insurmountable obstacles, but as opportunities, we can do a tremendous amount of good.

Mushroom Eyes (New Principle). This principle is one I first learned as a wild food forager and mushroom hunter. Before we can act, we must see and in order to see we must understand. Observation and interaction is part of this, but mushroom eyes How we see the world is how we inhabit it and how we interact with it. You might think of this is seeing through different lenses–when you put the lenses on, everything is colored by that experience. But these are lenses of knowledge and wisdom. Think about the hawk here—he knows exactly what he is going for. Nature wisdom is about not only awareness but knowledge. Animals teach their young skills necessary to survive; and humans, part of nature, used to teach these same natural lessons to their own offspring. So there is a knowledge component that is necessary for us to do design, and mushroom eyes helps us be able to see in deeper ways.

Design from the Patterns to Details (Mollison). Sometimes, when we are working to solve a problem, we focus on a specific thing we want to do (e.g. I want to build a waterfall) without thinking about the overall patterns (in this case, is there an existing resource flow? What is the overall pattern in the landscape?). Often, designing this way leads to trouble because you have the specific elements you want but you are missing the larger goals and purpose. This principle asks us to start with the biggest picture, like the outer edge of a spiral, and slowly work our way into the details of the problem. We think about the patterns of nature and energy first, and then work or way down to the specifics of that design. We design with the goals first and work our way down to the specific details of how we enact those goals. By starting with the larger patterns that nature provides, we can more effectively design–and attend–to the small stuff.

Fire Principles: The Wisdom of the Great Stag

Fire is about energy and change, and these three principles embody what we can do with energy and the many shifting changes around us. The Great White Stag is present in these principles as he lords over the forest: change is a constant in our great earth, and it is the many cycles such as the path of the sun, that we can harness for better life and living.

Catch and Store Energy (Holmgren). We live in a time of tremendous expenditure and waste of energy–this principle suggests that we catch and store that energy instead. If we look at a forest as our example, we see that forests are exceedingly effective at harnessing and storing any energy available: the trees grow in fractal patterns to store solar energy, and that solar energy is used over and over again, cycling through the system. In our own lives and designs, catching and storing energy to put to productive use is a key principle. This energy is any resource: external resources like sun, wind, or water and inner resources like time, joy, or passion. We can harness that energy and store it, later to be used. Humans currently have an unbalanced relationship with energy, and it is cause devastation throughout our lands. This principle, then, asks us to be mindful and think about existing energy flows and how they can be most effectively used.

Spiraling Changes (Use small, slow solutions, Holmgren): You might think about your own path as that of spiraling slowly up a mountain. You don’t climb a mountain all at once and you certainly don’t do it without preparation, ongoing evaluation, and occasional breaks. When we enact spiraling changes, we focus on what is managable for us in that moment and how to build momentum over time. Because, in reality, it are the small things, done over a period of time, that leave the most lasting impact.Rather than starting big and going all out with a 3 acre design, we create small, slow solutions that allow us to build upon success slowly from within. The principle of the spiral is critical here. We can’t burn ourselves out with trying to do too much, too quickly, and we can’t maintain our momentum. This principle also asks us to consider, for example, the role of ecological succession: we like to create designs thinking 100 years in the future, not just the immediate goals of tomorrow.

Creatively use and respond to change (Holmgren). Change happens whether or not we want it to; the world is always moving. Rather than see change as a bad thing, in permaculture we anticipate and embrace changes as a way to open up new possibilities and growth. This closely ties to one of the air principles, “the problem is the solution.” We often see change as a negative thing–we like how things are going, we don’t want things to be different. But change brings opportunity, if only we can see it. Here’s an example: I try putting up an arbor and my plants are so abundant that the thing collapses without adequate support. A creative response to this is to cut the vines back, use the cuttings for wreaths, and build a better arbor that allows me to sit under it!

Water Principles: The Wisdom of the Salmon in the Sacred Pool

The Salmon and the element of water focus on interconnections and relationships—and the three water principles ask us to attend to those connections. In order to be effective as practitioners and designers of permaculture, we have to pay attention to many relationships. Permaculture, like druidry, is ultimately a path of understanding and facilitating connections and relationships, and the energy of water helps do this very thing.

Integrate rather than Segregate (Holmgren). When you look at a typical vegetable garden, you see the veggies all in nice little rows, just waiting to eaten by whatever pest enjoys a good monocrop. Permaculture sees things differently: a healthy forest, after all, is never a monocrop but rather an integrated system. By integrating multiple elements in a design, we allow them to work with each other for good. This principle asks us to consider diversity in our designs; a diverse ecosystem is more diverse and resilient—it can handle pests, disease, and drought much better than a monoculture cornfield. So, too, is a diverse group of people more resilent! This principle asks us to consider how each part in a system is related to each other and to the whole system. This principle suggests that parts work best when they are working together, rather than in isolation. This principle also builds on the spirit principle of working on multiple levels and understanding better how each individual part plays a role.

Layered Purposes (Each element performs many functions, Mollison). This principle suggests that each element can serve multiple purposes. For example, meditation works for calming the mind, focused thought, relaxation, and spiritual development (that’s at least four functions, there are others). My chickens produce eggs, create compost from household and garden waste, provide enjoyment and companionship, and reduce problematic insect populations. The more purposes a single element has, the more effective the design. Any single plant or animal species in the forest offers an example: an oak tree provides shade, captures the energy of the sun, prevents erosion, drops leaves to offer habitat, offers nuts, and so many more things.

Use the Edges and Value the Margins (Holmgren). As a wild food forager and herbalist, I know that the margins are always the most abundant and diverse in an ecosystem–that’s where I go for much of my medicine and food. The edge of the pond or forest is where the activity is happening, where the bursting of life is taking place. This same principle can be applied to many other things: it is often at those edge spaces where we find the most interesting things happening! This can be the space between a forest and a field, the edge of your yard or, even, the spaces between two people, the spaces where we overlap.

Earth Principles: Wisdom of the Great Bear of the Starry Heavens

The element of the earth and the great bear focus on the material things: what we do with the resources that we have and how we gain those resources. The earth principles ask us to manage and understand our own resources so that we can live in an earth-centered way. The bear, and his medicine, is often of root, seed, and stone.

Obtain a Yield (Holmgren). This basic principle says that we should work to obtain some kind of yield for our efforts. However, in permaculture, the idea of a yield is not limited to that which benefits humans (like a crop of tomatoes). Yields can certainly include food and medicine (the most obvious) but also intangibles like beauty, harmony, and peace. Yields in the natural environment can include blooms for nectar; fruit, seeds, and nuts for wildlife; habitat; soil fertility; erosion prevention, and more. This principle asks us to go beyond our own immediate needs and understand, ultimately, that the abundance of nature is for all to benefit from. Nature is a great provider, and intentional design can help maximize the many yields she offers. This principle also asks us to see a yield beyond that which is immediately physically beneficial to our own lives.

Waste is a resource (Mollison): Our culture is drowning in our own waste; I detailed some of the problems we have with waste in earlier posts on waste and humanure. In permaculture, waste (of any kind) is seen as a resource that has not yet been given a proper place. We can work to, as Holmgren says, “produce no waste” by focusing our efforts on redirecting waste streams towards productivity. For example, human waste and urine can safely be used as a fertilizer under certain conditions. Old office paper can be turned into greeting cards using basic papermaking practices. Spent grains from brewing can be added to the compost pile, and so on. Producing no waste goes far beyond recycling and instead encourages us to re-envision our waste streams.

Embrace Renewables (Use and value renewables, Holmgren): Stemming from the permaculture ethic of earth care, one of the major issues we have in industrialized culture is an over-dependence on fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources of energy and goods. Our planet has finite resources and the extraction of these resources is causing increasing suffering, destruction, pollution, and habitat loss. In permaculture, we instead embrace things that are renewable or free (like the sun or wind for energy). When we integrate renewables into our designs, we slow and/or eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels.

Elemental Wheel

Weaving the Design Principles and Elements into Practice

Just as we weave together the elements in rituals and in our own lives, so too, can we weave the different permaculture principles into our daily living. As I discussed in my post last week, these principles aren’t just useful to us as “designers” when we are planning, but they also can be useful to us as mantras for meditation and just as principles for daily living–I try to use the principles as I go about my daily practice. In the past, when I was first learning permaculture, I spent a month intensively studying each of the principles (you could do this for a week or even a day). This meant that for the “problem is the solution” month, I would spend time reflecting on it in meditation and working to embody the principle, seeing where it would work in my daily life, and using it to explore and think through larger societal problems.

It has taken me the better part of two years to come to this understanding of permaculture and how it maps onto the druid animals and elemental symbolism. I hope that this framing, along with my new additions and revisions to the principles, are a useful way of understanding these principles and how they can work in your life. In our next post, we’ll explore these same principles from an “inner landscape” perspective and then subsequent posts will move into exploring each individual principle and how we can use it to change our lives, regenerate our lands, and better our world.

PS: I especially want to thank David N. for his conversations and feedback on this line of thinking!

I had the most amazing thing happen to me about a month ago, and it involved the direct (palliative) healing of an active strip mine site. I was heading to teach an herbalism course at a friend’s business about 15 minutes away from where I live. My drive this requires me to cross a divided highway and do a u-turn at a site that is a very new active strip mine. They aren’t fully removing the mountain, but they are certainly cutting into it quite a bit, and ripping up the entire surface of the land in the process. For a while, I’ve been driving past this spot, and energetically, it just feels bad, like in the pit of your belly bad. I knew something was to be done, but I wasn’t sure what. So I kept visiting, listening, and being told “wait” (using the same strategies I’ve shared with you earlier in this series). And so, wait I did.

Rainbow Working!

That particular day when I was going to teach my class, we had both sunshine and storms. Rain would pour for five minutes and then it would be sunny again. These are such fun days to enjoy, and usually rainbows abound. I hadn’t yet seen one, but I had anticipated it, and sure enough, I wasn’t disappointed. Just I was turning around, I saw a rainbow–it was right in front of me, on the road ahead. I decided to follow it slowly with my car, and suddenly, it jumped. When it jumped, I looked to my left, and there it was, coming down right in the center of the whole strip mine operation. Now, for anyone who has studied the old Celtic, underworld, and fairy lore, a jumping rainbow is described as an old trick to lead you somewhere–and that’s definitely what happened in this case.

Now, every day, as part of my AODA practice, I connect with the three currents (a strategy I’d suggest in preparation for this kind of work; I’ll talk more about this later in this post). I’m pretty adept, at this point, in channeling down the solar current. I connected with that rainbow, with the sun’s rays reflecting off of those droplets of water and pulled it down, deep down, into the darkness and suffering of that strip mine. I sat for quite a while and channeled down that energy, and as I did, the rainbow grew brighter, and more brilliant. At some point, the work felt done. The land felt cleaner. More at peace with what was happening. The worst of the bad energy was gone. Each time since I’ve visited that spot, the effects of the rainbow remain.

Now, obviously, a rainbow working is not really something you can plan! But, I did want to share this as a potent land healing strategy to open up today’s post. And I think what I can share is that even if you don’t have the blessing of a rainbow over the spot you want to help heal, you do have the energy of the sun frequently, and it can be used in various ways–as we’ll explore today, along with other strategies for palliative care.

Why Palliative Care?

When I started this land healing series, I started with descriptions of the different kinds of healing work you can do: physical and energetic land healing for sites that need active regeneration and healing (which is where things like permaculture fit) and palliative care (for sites that cannot yet be healed and are underging active harm). Today’s post is going to explore specific land healing strategies for palliative care that you can engage in–these are specific strategies for sites that are just like the rainbow working above: these sites have ongoing active destruction or are far from what nature intended. As before, if you haven’t read the earlier parts in this series, I would strongly suggest that you do so, as the series builds from the previous posts: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI and Part VII.

I think that Palliative Care for sites that are currently experiencing destruction and suffering is just as hard to deal with as the impending destruction of a natural site (which I talked about two weeks ago); both of these give you a sense of powerlessness that is difficult to deal with. You want to look away. You want to disengage. But instead, I suggest you try to engage, to help, to heal. Because I can tell you this–nobody else is doing this work on our landscapes. If we, as druids and those who love the land and hold her sacred can’t do it, then who can? Even when looking at that strip mine, that logged landscape, that fracking well, that acidic river (the ones I deal with here most often), know that that what I am looking at is still the living earth and it is still sacred land. This kind of stuff is not one a druid meandering through the woods wants to find, but it is unfortunately a common reality that we face in the age of 21st century industrialism.

I believe that every age has its own spiritual challenges, and that our spiritual practices are often born from what we experience; I certainly see responding to this kind of experience as necessary for a druid living in such times. And to me, we are in a unique position to do something, and I believe, even for sites that are actively being destroyed and harmed, that something can have very long-term implications. Consider palliative care like the first stage in the healing process–you are setting the stage for what is to come.

Palliative Care and Energetic Changes

I want to start by saying that nearly all of the strategies I outlined two weeks ago for sites that are going to be destroyed also work for palliative care. These include: working with the stones, working with Indian Ghost Pipe as a plant ally, putting the land in hibernation, and saving seeds. These are strategies that can do tremendous good for sites that are undergoing active harm.

At the same time, there is a large energetic difference between these two kinds of sites: namely, a site that is not yet destroyed doesn’t have this energetic darkness and active suffering that a site that is destroyed carries. Its that energetic darkness that is the focus of some of my work in palliative care, and so, I generally find myself doing a lot more energetic cleansing work on actively destroyed sites, and hence, that’s what today’s post will mainly focus on.

I’d also like to share that the energetic nature of active destruction changes over time, and I think, is due in part to where in the process things are occurring. If a site has been actively destroyed for a long period of time, you often encounter this energetic deadness or a complete lack of vitality. A lot of the rivers around here are like that–they have been acidic and poisonous to life for half a century or more–this means that they are largely “dead” feeling, where the active strip mine site (a new operation less than a year old) is energetically very dark and intense.

What I do depends on a number of factors. I generally don’t do much with the dead sites unless I know active healing can happen–I think that the deadness is better than most other things, in that there is no active suffering, and the land has figured out how to numb itself and the spirits have retreated. So for these, I might say a small prayer or blessing, but otherwise, leave them be. I am certainly not going to do anything to “wake” that site back up or call those spirits back until it is time and active healing work can begin. When it is time for real healing to take place though, the “deadened” land then needs you to come in and give it a burst of light and life (see upcoming post!)

Most sites actively under siege, instead, have this really dark intensity to them and feel really “wrong” and “awful” just being near them. For example, when I was visiting a friend in West Virginia not too long ago, I was driving and was struck with this horribly awful feeling as I rounded the bend. Turned out, just around the next bend was a huge gravel/sand pit, cutting into the mountainside–and that was the source of the suffering. This is exactly the kind of site that could benefit from palliative care. And so, my real focus today, is on active suffering and sites that have that energetic darkness, sickness, feeling of absolute wrongness, that pervades them.

Solar Blessings and Getting Rid of the Worst of the Energetic Darkness

A sacred pool uniting heaven and earth, the solar and the telluric (see below)

So about 5 posts ago in this series, I shared information on the three currents and how ancient peoples, and modern ones, can use the currents to help heal and bless the land. In the case of palliative care, nearly all of the problems we have are with the currents of energy in the earth, the telluric currents. The telluric currents govern what is on the land and of the land, what is on and of the earth, and that’s where the bulk of the problems for industrialized cultures, great and small, arise. It is the uncontrolled fossil fuel use, an earthly treasure, that has our world’s climate in chaos; it is the pillaging of earthly resources that are really causing so many palliative situations to occur. These telluric currents become easily corrupted by the many earthly activities that pervade industrialized society: gravel pits, strip mines, regular mining operations, pesticides and industrialized farming, fracking, tar sands, logging, typical lawn care, and more. And so, I have found that attending to the telluric currents, by way of ancient knowledge, can tremendously help in palliative care.

I have found that you can effectively use the solar currents to clear away, or purify, the worst of the energetic darkness of sites under active destruction. There are lots of ways to do this, and one of them was how I opened this post: a rainbow working! There are many, many ways to channel the solar currents down into the telluric, and this is an excellent way to get rid of the energetic crud, the worst of the suffering, and provide some respite. I kind of see this work like providing a healing balm to soothe the energetic effects of active destruction. You aren’t solving the problem by any means, but you are certainly doing something that really helps.

Most of my strategies for channeling the solar (sun) down into the telluric currents (the energy of the earth) for purification and blessing involve using specific rituals within the AODA framework. These include the AODA’s sphere of protection (which I use most often), our seasonal grove rituals (found in the Druid Grove Handbook) or the communion ceremony from the Gnostic Celtic Church (found in the Gnostic Celtic Church Handbook). Each of these rituals establish the space and then, as the core work of the ritual, connect to the energy of the sun, the earth, and awaken the telluric current. I’ll share one simple derivations here, but I wanted you to understand where a lot of what I do comes from and where you can get more extended versions. I’ve been working in this tradition for over a decade, and I think, in its own way, maybe it led me to this work by putting the perfect tools in my hands!

So a simple way to channel the solar down into the telluric is through AODA’s Sphere of Protection working as a basic framework. I’m giving a simplified version of it here, and you can add and adapt as necessary. I would begin by going to an area that needed some palliative care, and, as I mentioned before in earlier posts, ascertain the nature of the work at hand. If I felt led, I would do the following:

Grounding and centering myself for the work at hand. Part of this is opening myself up for the flow of energies, breathing deeply, and feeling rooted in the living earth. As part of the grounding and centering, I would open up some kind of protective space (even if its as simple as drawing a circle on the ground, or in the air as white light).

I would next go to the east, and call in the positive qualities of the east to aid the land and me in the working. Then I would banish in the east, driving away any harmful or disturbing energies. I’d then go to the south, west, and north, doing the same thing: calling upon the positive qualities of the element and banishing the negative ones. As you get used to doing this, you’ll find you can banish the negative qualities in larger and larger regions and areas–and this is super helpful for clearing work.

At each of the quarters, I would use my senses to experience that element in the world around me, identifying the influence of those four elements on the landscape: in the east I might look at the movement of the air, pay attention to the smell of the air, the birds in the sky, seeds blowing in the wind, and so on.

Then, I would invoke the three currents: I would first draw a circle on the ground and invoke the telluric current, envisioning it rising through the circle as a greenish-gold light. I would assess its purity and flow. Then I would trace a circle in the air and pull down the solar current, envisioning it as a yellow flame coming down from the sun and the celestial heavens.

I would intone the “Awen” and then draw upon everything I had called: the four elements and the currents to unify the currents, awakening the lunar current and sending the solar deep within the telluric. I would envision energy coming from each of the four directions, from the sky, and down, into the telluric.

I would envision this work as long as necessary, sometimes for several minutes, sometimes for a half hour or more. Usually it doesn’t take too long, but it depends on the area. When I felt the work was done, I would close the space (but would not send away what I had called).

That’s it in a nutshell–there’s more to it than that, but I think that’s enough for you to work with, and adapt, as you see fit. I would say that there are more elaborate rituals and workings using these energies, but doing something basic, to start, is a good way to begin. Some of you, who are new to ritual work, might say, “yes, but does it work?” The truth is, I cannot believe the potency and usefulness of the Sphere of Protection alone in much of this work. I find its an extremely versatile for a lot of different kinds of land healing (and other healing) work.

Standing Stones

As I wrote about in my third post of the series (which helps set up today’s post) as well as my recent post on sacred gardening, humans have long been using standing stones, temples, trees, ceremonies, and more to channel the solar energies into the land for healing and abundance–but I have found these work fantastically for palliative care. The reason is simple–setting a standing stone or using some other key marker to help channel down the solar current is a working that takes time and space to achieve. Unlike a ritual, which radically alter a space and its energetic profile quite quickly, a standing stone is slow work, over time, over potentially a lot of time. This lends itself well to palliative care, because its like a slow-releasing healing agent. I’m having difficulty putting into words exactly what I mean here, but I hope you get my meaning.

Hermes is setting the standing stone in the pool!

So just this past week, two druids snuck into the woods into the park north of town and worked to set a standing stone in the forest; the same forest where many gas wells are present. We did this because here is a place, in the heart of fracking country, where the waters and forests and lands are under active duress. We had come across a natural spring earlier in the week on a hike, a tiny spring that pops up only in the springtime of the year or after heavy rains. It was barely noticeable, but eventually flowed into a small stream with moss-covered stones. We carefully cleared away the leaves and sticks to see what we could find, and were excited with the discovery of three trickles of water welling up from the earth, almost in the shape of an awen. The next day, we came back better prepared and set some rocks below the spring to created a small gazing pool. Then we went off in search of a standing stone–and sure enough, within about 10 minutes, we were delighted to find a perfect standing stone for the pool. We set that stone as a long-term healing presence, to bless these waters, those that flow past so many of those gas wells, and later, one fracking well. To help bless all these waters that are under duress from the many fracking activities here, to cleanse and nurture the telluric currents, the spirits of these lands, and the physical forest during this difficult time. The interesting thing about this particular spot is that its right along a fairly well-used path, so if passerby are looking in the right direction at the right time, the pool and standing stone will be quite evident! Now, we didn’t do any ritual work at the spot–we just wanted to set the stone and let it do its good work for a while. However, we could come back at a later point, when we felt it was time, and do that work.

Land Shrines

Even if you can’t set a standing stone, I have found that a small shrine, carefully placed and tended, can work wonders over a period of time. Perhaps you create a simple stone cairn and pour blessed waters (see below) over it every season. Perhaps you plant a rare native plant and surround it with stones. The actual shrine, and what goes into it, can be intuitive. But these small places are healing, they are like a light in the dark. For land that is suffering, what your shrine does is give it a focal point, something to hang onto, something to direct its attention and let the spirits of that land know that someone is thinking about them, wishing them well, and saying that we are here in support. I have made many such shrines over the years–small places, hidden places, that I quietly go and visit. You will get a sense, from the land itself, about how often you need to come and what you can do while you are there.

Music and Song

Me playing the panflute for the land

I’ve mentioned before on this blog about the wonderful (and often subversive) nature of music and singing for any land healing work. This is healing work, of any variety, that can be done publicly and openly. I have found that certain songs, especially old folk songs, work particularly well for soothing the land, and allowing it to prepare for what is to come, and putting it to sleep.

If you use this technique, you will develop your own songs that that have meaning and may even be given songs to use with the land–but I would start with the melodies of old folk songs, songs that have been sung in your lands for several generations at least–and use those. I found a book once, at a local cave that was open to the public, called “Back Porch Melodies” and it had almost 50 folk songs–many of these I found useful and adapted them to my practices. I may change the lyrics or play them on my panflute, but the songs resonate deeply and the music can soothe and help pave the way.

Blessed Waters for Damaged Rivers

Another thing that I have done over a period of time is to collect and bless sacred waters (see this post for a ritual to create them). I usually do this work at Imbolc or the Spring equinox each year–when the waters are flowing and the spring is returning. I began working with blessed waters many years ago,as part of my work with water over a period of years. Now, I have this sacred water, used for countless ceremonies over the years, and from countless places all over the world, that I use as part of my land healing work. Because the rivers, the lakes, and the oceans are one of the things tremendously under distress, a little bit of healing water goes a long way. I have placed a few drops of my water into the headwaters of various rivers, so that as they go and become more polluted, the healing waters are still there, flowing. I also place them into the polluted rivers themselves, dropping a single drop or two in with prayers (think homeopathic doses, here!). I use the sacred waters to drip on the roots of trees and plants, to lathe stones, to pour over healing altars and standing stones, and much more. I have found that carrying a little bit of this water with me anywhere I am means that I am always ready and able to do some healing work. And I can give it away to others, and then they can do good work as well!

I replenish the sacred waters, adding to them, by visiting springs and other local healing wells. These have an abundance of good telluric energy and you can multiply the sacred waters you create as much as you need to.

Moving Earth

This last strategy I’m going to share today for palliative care is one that I’ve used only once, but I think its an important one, and some of you may find yourself also as needing to do this work. When I first moved to MI, there was this big shopping mall area–it had a stadium, all these highways, buildings, even a big giant garbage mountain that they were doing as a dump. But the area just felt sacred to me, in ways it normally wouldn’t have. Every time I was there (I had to drive past it on my way to campus each day), I would see the most amazing things: spirals of birds, the light of the sun peeking through the clouds, interesting cloud formations, etc. It was just slightly more magical, more sacred, than everywhere else around it. So one day, I went to the site, climbed up on a big hill near a big box home improvement store, and lay among the weeds, listening with my inner and outer senses, and observing. I saw a vision of the site, what it had been (indeed, a sacred place for peoples before), and how much it was suffering now–it was very much awake and alive, and being used in a very unsacred manner. I was asked, very clearly, to gather up a small handful of soil from the site for a year period–at each of the solstices and equinoxes. I did this and then, had the bowl of soil at my house for some time on one of my altars. Finally, I was led to move the soil to a very sacred place, an old growth forest. When I next drove by the shopping mall area, it wasn’t sacred any longer. I had somehow…transferred…what was sacred there to a place it could reside. This was certainly a kind of palliative care, but in this case, it was literally transferring something sacred to somewhere else.

Closing

I hope that this set of strategies proves useful to you in your ongoing land healing work–and please comment and share your own strategies, thoughts, and experiences. I’m especially interested in hearing from you about my last two weeks of posts–and the many specific strategies that I’m sharing. I believe I have 1-2 more posts to write to complete this series, at least at this time. Blessings to all!